


Metropolis, My Love

by foxtwin



Category: Beyond Metropolis - Shriekback (Song)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-23
Updated: 2016-12-23
Packaged: 2018-09-11 09:02:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,234
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8973337
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/foxtwin/pseuds/foxtwin
Summary: A canonically conceptual view of Metropolis from the outside.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [LadySilver](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadySilver/gifts).



Euck.  Ihe daamn aa key is stuck aagaaiaan. AAnd my daamn typomaaticwordmaaker’s caapitaal letters! Ribbon is aalmost out of ink. I haate life here.

Computers would be so much better. Like in Metropolis. No daamn stuck aa keys needed to write the naame, either. Or messed up caapitaal t keys, or maalfunctioning caapitaal f keys, either.

I wish I could be in Metropolis. Beyond this craappy city. Ihaat haas aa craappy naame.  
I waant you to taake  me to Metropolis!  It’s eaasy to saay, eaasy to write. Ericking eaasier thaan Fxnovotechnikaageopolis. Need aa daamn fricking doctoraate from Haarvaard just to spell it. Of course, if one needs to wonder overmuch why I caan’t staand this hellhole…for heaaven’s saakes pick the daamn city-word aapaart!  Fxnovotechnik – formerly new technology…old shit…aancient aass-wipe tech!  Fverything here is haand-me-down. Fverything. The typomaaticwordmaaker, the suck-faace ribbon, the daark-piss paaper. Fven the food, clothes, aand shelter they sell us. It’s aa huge pile of craap! Iechnology here sucks. Reaaly sucks. Ihrowing old shit aawaay is forbidden here. AAnd it's aall old shit.

I waant out.

Now!

Eriends remind me every time I see them there’s not much of aa future for aanyone here. Unless one likes this old school shit. Some people do, don't aask me why. In faact, being reaalistic, there’s no future here aat aall. Ihaat’s the daamn point of the town, now, isn’t it? We live in the fricking paast. AAnd we’re supposed to like it.

Iorvaaldis (thaat’s Iorvaaldis, my neighbor aacross the dirt paath, not the other one in Laamepolyscitechnikopolis) saays he’s going to staart collecting smaart phones so thaat when our faair city opts into the Iwenty-Eirst Century, my daamn letters don’t reaad like some Kindergaartner’s scraawl.  Iorvaaldis saays I should leaave town. Uproot. Ely aawaay.

Faasier saaid thaan done. Eaamily. Eriends.

Ihey keep me here. Ihey keep me aalive. Ihey help me see the possibilities aaround me.  
But I dreaam of leaaving them aall, aall this baackwaards living. Eor whaat?

 

Deaarest Metropolis! My Love!

===

@I’m on the road now with something called a quill pen. It’s ancient. Supposedly made of the feather of some extinct bird (Hell, I haven’t seen a bird with this sized feather in @ges!), and I have to cons@antly dip the@ feather into a small glass vial of @quid ink that gets everywhere, @s you can pl@inly see. The fe@ther near tickles my nose with each stroke, making me sneeze, which gets the wet ink @ll over when I move. And splotchy. You can see the spl@tches for yourself (unless this paper ever gets transcri@ed, which I doubt). They’re @@every@where. There @re even som@ words you can see are m@ssed up. B@ writing like this hurts my hands, and it ta@s even more time to write than the typomaticwordmaker with all of its qu@rks.

At least the traveling is going well. My doublefootpumpscooter is getting me all of 2 miles @@ hour (I’m pleasantly plump and max out @@ walking ten steps), so I feel I’m going at a pretty good @lip. I’ve had to st@p and rest and write every fifteen minutes or so. I know @hat you’re thinking, but des@ite the slow progress I’m at least that much closer to Metropolis (though still@stinking admittedly closer to Exnovotechnikageopolis). Maybe I should just give up, come home, hang up my hat, and be satisfied with my shitt@ lot. Makes me wonder why I ev@n left m@ wood-fired one-room. @

Well, tempus fugit, as they say in Latinphraspeakonlyobscuropolis, @r whatever that town’s name is.

Damn...I think my quill’s ink is running ou      

==

Doublefootpumpscooter broke down about six days ago. Been walking ever since. Using the newest Verbaltranscriptionprotocol machine (Don’t tell mother. She’d have a heart attack.), which is, in a word, Awesome! But I still haven’t been able to afford cab or bus fare to Metropolis. I’ve had good meals on the road, most offered by strangers and fellow travelers. But when I mention Metropolis, people always ask me why I want to go there, particularly. I give my reasons, which by now you know. But they seem to long for the days they could go back to using old shit. Which leads them to caution me about using words like ...[This word has been deleted]...which is silly-stupid, because [This word has been deleted] is such a cool-sounding word and ever so colorful, especially when you [This word has been deleted][This word has been deleted][This word has been deleted][This word has been deleted]. God, how I love good technology!  

===

I can see the walls of Metropolis, and I’m not sure I like the choice of black-on-black-on-red-on-gray. Too..gothic industrialist. But, it’s [This word has been deleted] awesome-looking, if a bit dark and foreboding for those of us raised in Exnovotechnicageopolis. Intimidating? Maybe a little. Doesn’t matter to me. I’m finally here! But I don’t get the decorations. Why the heads on sticks? Why the signs, “Beware the Heathen”? And what of the high walls, like towers reaching into the sky? And the sky-bound railways that make the place look like a [This word has been deleted] mixture of medieval and modern and melancholy. And the Priests of Progress are everywhere, dressed as they are in their metallic garb, smartphone in hand, proclaiming doom to the so-called heathen -- those who wear cotton and silk and rayon and polyester. The Lexus and Mercedes Benz neo-electric-windturbine-hybrids wave at the have-nots in their early model Datsuns who work the grand electric-, steam- and coal-powered industrial plants that make all of this new technology possible. Folk like me, an outsider wanting in, haven't got a chance in [This word has been deleted]. That's right, [This word has been deleted]. I'll say it again. _Heck_.

Moving on. Moving on. Moving on.

===

Finally close enough to smell the Metropolis air -- and it’s a sulfurous mix of industry, fear and body odors. There’s even an hourly “Fear and Loathing Show” where the audience is encouraged not to use real string or fish to catch their meaning. Lucky for me, I didn’t bring either of them with me! Lucky, lucky me.

===

There are more heads on sticks the closer I get. Heathens all. I’m not sure if they disturb me as much as the lord and ladies, every now and then parking their Mercedes Benz and Lexus vehicles, picking at the flesh of the skulls on spikes and seemingly enjoying themselves despite the sickening process.

I keep passing more stores that are catering to travelers, more Priests of Progress shouting more dire predictions about heathens wanting to break down the city walls (as if). More signs pointing the way to various distant, if spurious, locales -- including my former hometown.

Home.

I feel like I’ve been gone a lifetime. How I miss it. How I hate it.

How I hate that I miss it.

==

People look desperate on the streets here outside the main gate, which is shut tight and allowing no outsiders in. Not even me, who has been waiting forever to get here. What will I do now?

==  
I guess in the end, it all comes down to this. I’ll have to find something beyond Metropolis. Of course, I could go back home. But I hear Intoxivinopharmanarcobibendopolis has a laidback vibe. No technology at all! No worries! Now...how to get there….


End file.
